The Corrections

we just nuke all billion point two of ’em, hey? Clean that part of the world up already. And let’s not forget about women generally, nothing but a trail of Kleenexes and Tampaxes everywhere they go. And your fairies with their doctor’s-office lubricants, and your Mediterraneans with their whiskers and their garlic, and your French with their garter belts and raunchy cheeses, and your blue-collar ball-scratchers with their hot rods and beer belches, and your Jews with their circumcised putzes and gefilte fish like pickled turds, and your Wasps with their Cigarette boats and runny-assed polo horses and go-to-hell cigars? Hey, funny thing, Fred, the only people that don’t belong in your jail are upper-middle-class northern European men. And you’re on my case for wanting things my way?”
    “What will it take to make you leave this room?” Alfred said.
    “Loosen up the old sphincter, fella. Let it fly.”
    “I will never!”
    “In that case I might pay a visit to your shaving kit. Have me a little episode o’ diarrhea on your toothbrush. Drop a couple nice globbets in your shave cream and tomorrow a.m. you can lather up a rich brown foam—”
    “Enid,” Alfred said in a strained voice, not taking his eyes off the crafty turd, “I am having difficulties. I would appreciate your assistance.”
    His voice ought to have awakened her, but her sleep was Snow White–like in its depth.
    “Enid dahling, ” the turd mocked in a David Niven accent, “I should most appreciate some assistance at your earliest possible convenience.”
    Unconfirmed reports from nerves in the small of Alfred’s back and behind his knees indicated that additional turd units were in the vicinity. Turdish rebels snuffling stealthily about, spending themselves in trails of fetor.
    “Food and pussy, fella,” said the leader of the turds, now barely clinging to the wall by one pseudopod of fecal mousse, “is what it all comes down to. Everything else, and I say this in all modesty, is pure shit.”
    Then the pseudopod ruptured and the leader of the turds —leaving behind on the wall a small clump of putrescence—plunged with a cry of glee onto a bed that belonged to Nordic Pleasurelines and was due to be made in a few hours by a lovely young Finnish woman. Imagining this clean, pleasant housekeeper finding lumps of personal excrement spattered on the bedspread was almost more than Alfred could bear.
    His peripheral vision was alive with writhing stool now. He had to hold things together, hold things together. Suspecting that a leak in the toilet might be the source of his trouble, he made his way on hands and knees into the bathroom and kicked the door shut behind him. Rotated with relative ease on the smooth tiles. Braced his back against the door and pushed his feet against the sink opposite him. He laughed for a moment at the absurdity of his situation. Here he was, an American executive sitting in diapers on the floor of a floating bathroom under siege by a squadron of feces. A person got the strangest notions late at night.
    The light was better in the bathroom. There was a science of cleanliness, a science of looks, a science even of excretion as evidenced by the outsized Swiss porcelain eggcup of a toilet, a regally pedestaled thing with finely knurled levers ofcontrol. In these more congenial surroundings Alfred was able to collect himself to the point of understanding that the turdish rebels were figments, that to some extent he had been dreaming, and that the source of his anxiety was simply a drainage problem.
    Unfortunately, operations were shut down for the night. There was no way to have a look personally at the rupture, nor any way to put a plumber’s snake or video cam down there. Highly unlikely as well that a contractor could get a rig out to the site under conditions like these. Alfred wasn’t even sure he could pinpoint his location on a map himself.
    There was nothing for it but to wait until morning. Absent a full solution, two half-solutions were better than no solution at all. You tackled the problem with whatever you had in hand.
    Couple of extra diapers: that ought to hold for a few hours. And here were the diapers, right by the toilet in a bag.
    It was nearly four o’clock. There would be hell to pay if the district manager wasn’t at his desk by seven. Alfred couldn’t recollect the fellow’s exact name, not that it mattered. Just call the office and whoever picked up the phone.
    It was